Bras­sil de­fends GPs in re­sponse to Taoiseach’s re­marks

FIANNA Fáil TD John Bras­sil has ac­cused Taoiseach Leo Varad­kar of at­tempt­ing to ‘pass the buck’ on hos­pi­tal over­crowd­ing by ‘scape­goat­ing’ GPs over refer­ing pa­tients to A&E de­part­ments.

Bras­sil’s com­ments were in re­sponse to Taoiseach Varad­kar’s pro­posal to re­view GPs for ‘over-re­fer­ring’ pa­tients to emer­gency units. “This is yet an­other at­tempt to dis­tract from the Taoiseach’s and his Govern­ment’s own fail­ings in im­prov­ing the pub­lic health ser­vice,” Deputy Bras­sil told The Ker­ry­man. “GPs re­fer pa­tients to emer­gency de­part­ments be­cause they be­lieve it’s in the best in­ter­ests of the pa­tient. To say other­wise is an in­sult to the pro­fes­sion­al­ism of dozens of in­cred­i­bly hard work­ing fam­ily doc­tors in Kerry. He [the Taoiseach] is try­ing to pass the buck for fail­ings in the health ser­vice,” he said.